Life's really funny. How many times have we seen the "forces" that were promised to "free" us end-up being the cause or perhaps the "fuel" that boosts the epicenter at the other end. Gnome brag about GNU philosophy and "seems" so try to look like the guardians of "light".
But at the same time through their pride and ignorance (not quite true actually... more later) gives the exact opportunity for "others" to easily disappoint people. For instance, I don't know about other and I have nothing against KDE but I've been a bit "close" to Gnome desktop rather than KDE.
To this day I don't have the faintest idea for the exact reason for that, sometimes I suspect that it may have nothing to do with Gnome being close GNU but maybe, just maybe, it could be because it was actually Gnome which was my first "taste" of GNU/Linux!.
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It was with Redhat and before that I've never used Linux. And interestingly to this day, I'm drawn to RedHat related distros (Fedora Core for instance). Anyway all I'm trying to say is, it's not that easy to get around your past and the authority it carries till the very end of your life ;).
The reason I loved Ubuntu when she was still very young is because for some reason, the OS felt solid compared with other distros thus even after using it for few minutes, Ubuntu was able perceive me the idea of confidence. Even after being disappointed with the darn UGLY theme it used to come with, yet I loved it. And the other the most important one, was due to the fact that Ubuntu being a "Gnome based" distribution!.
Although I put it secondly but it is actually most prominent factor, for me.
It's/was also very interesting how I "define/d" the idea of confidence or willing to see it others. It actually doesn't matter how solidly the OS is built. For me, the idea/emotion of being comfortable/confidence was always triggered by the OS's ability to "represent" it's familiarity with Gnome.
For instance, in the past I've used many solid Linux distributions such as OpenSuse, Mandriva, Slackware, etc. But none of those great (I meant it :D) distros were able to make me comfortable. I never stick with KDE based distributions (not even with Kubuntu) for that long.
But every time I use Fedora Core which is not the best OS if you're really new to GNU/Linux because unlike Ubuntu or many others, FC also behaves in a very similar pattern to Gnome developers. For example, by default Fedora Core does not allow you to read-write NTFS partitions nor they let you easily install multimedia codes (.bmp image extensions are un-readable, etc) either. Even after such disappointments, yet every time I use FC,
I feel comfortable. But that's my personal dilemma. Can we really trust the sense of comfort as a way of measuring "freedom". For instance...
...this is the reason that I loved Ubuntu from the beginning. I came across GNU/Linux, because like everyone else, I also hated the idea of even thinking someone else being in control of my life. But then again, interestingly most of my friends don't give shi* about what's the "idea" behind the OS and how "open" it is etc. They just use it. And heck, some people are seems to be really comfortable around some certain types of "authority" figures :P. Why is that?. Is it because they don't care about some else being in control of their lives???.
I guess that, it depends on the way we define ourselves. For instance, if you're an engineer, then you might be okay with accepting "opinions" from someone else as long as he's anything but who you are. This is the basic idea behind the illusory idea of "community" or "team-work" (also in relationships, I maybe wrong on that one, perhaps).
As long as the individuals in a team belongs to different types in nature, you'll maintain its balance. Problems will rise as long as you start adding more than one type to the group (a second Java developers for instance).
You won't feel threatened as long as you're the only Java developer in your little "group", but when Sam from US arrives :P who's also happened to be a Java expert... things start to get interesting. I sometimes feel like this could be the reason for a lot others not to care much about the "philosophy" behind the operating system that they're using. Because they don't "identify" themselves as "computer related", if you know what I mean.
As said this also helps to maintain a false sense of "harmony". Because this serves the purpose of giving everyone what they want... for some it gives the idea of superiority. For instance, you could open a business, say about computer software. Then you can easily dominate the market by giving what "others want" and in your way you can make small adjustments of your "own" which helps
to drift those people your idea of reality which serves the purpose of being right.
But most of the time you being able to "control" that community depends on their interests. The
recent Gnome-Canonical clash is an excellent example. The failure of Mark Shuttleworth being unable to "convince" Gnome team to accept
his "proposal" is due to the fact that Gnome team consists of individuals who's identity heavily depends on being a computer hacker, which is their idea of not being scared of "life" (I didn't put it in a bad way guys, I'm no better, where do you think these "ideas" come from :P). He threatened them, their identity, thus he WILL not succeed with them. But...
... he as with Microsoft, may succeed with the other-kind of people who are "not closely related to computers", because for those people, computers are just tools... not an identity. This method of deceiving ourselves ignorantly serves the common purpose for both sides. People at one side think they're so advanced and mature because they "control" the people at the other end. But the people at the other side don't give a damn about being "controlled", because as far as they're concerned, they're not.
It's like when
everyone involved gets just what they wanted (the sense of comfort, at last :P), hah... the perfect con of life.
So in the end, which side is really free??.
Just because I feel comfortable doesn't mean I'm really free. That's pretty much wrap things up for me. Maybe the geeky "Tux" has conned me after all :).
